


A Matter of Time

by chantefable



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, Time Travel, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purpose_miner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpose_miner/gifts).



“History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends.  
History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends. ”

Karl Marx

**I**

One must not confuse intelligence with diplomacy, but it would be short-sighted to consider them entirely unrelated.

So far, UNCLE has been a painfully un-amusing example of the pitfalls of the emerging conference and consensus diplomacy. Interior voting process when it comes to major decision-making is strained, and the attempts to legitimize middle-ground solutions demand vertiginous circus acts of tact in order to yield the much coveted mediocre results.

Moreover, when meeting at the negotiations table with the authorized representatives of numerous foreign offices, intelligence agencies, and nebulously identified departments, UNCLE personnel frequently have to deal with those who are their yesterday's colleagues. Between pages 145 and 210 of yet another draft proposal, they feverishly grasp for the sense of their newly minted UNCLE identity and struggle not to succumb to the lure of old, easy affiliations. Over a cup of perfectly brewed Turkish coffee and a bite of a perfectly fluffy Danish pastry, UNCLE people resist the temptation to solve matters privately, unofficially, solely relying on their gut sense and habit that spur them to get things over with quickly and efficiently – with that fellow resident from Berlin, so many years together; with that fellow diplomat from Cairo, fond memories; with that fellow trade representative from Tokyo, hello, old chap, used to love to hate you. And yet that, of course, is not the way things ought to be. 

The fragile and yet constantly spreading mandate of UNCLE, deceptively light like a spider's web, must be clad in the most trusted diplomatic iron of all: legal documents, international regulations, official proof of the agreements that have been reached. A relationship of equals between institutions; a herd of courteous bureaucratic behemoths. 

A relationship of trust that requires overcoming alienation that lingers on both administrative and political levels no matter how many slices of Sachertorte have been polished off by the delegates at the negotiations table earlier.

It is necessary to recognize the scope of their mutual interests as organizations, to maintain a balance and to lay the groundwork for multilateral cooperation in crisis and everyday situations alike. The necessity seems commonplace, but seeing the matter come to fruition is anything but. The representatives of all countries, all agencies, are restrained by their authorization and by their competence alike; with each partner, UNCLE is moving at a different pace, completely out of step with some of them, caught in a ridiculous dance – a flirty and flighty saltarello with some, dynamic progress giving them even more specialists to fill the modern office spaces of their headquarters, and an intense, grievous tango with others, forever returning to unresolved matters of past conflicts between, strictly speaking, third parties.

It is all entirely predictable, logical, and unavoidable, and yet Alexander Waverly cannot escape the stab of vexation, something between a migraine and a heart attack, even as he chairs yet another high-level meeting. He trusts that his expression is genial and placid, as telling as a murky cup of perfectly milky tea, and yet when he idly meets the eyes of Oleg Vinogradov across the table, he knows that the other man can parse his mood and his assessment of the situation perfectly well. But then, it is hardly surprising given how much they have in common. Counter-intelligence. Similar professional goals, similar disposition, similar judgements in any given circumstance. Haven't they known each other for many years, juxtaposing haphazard facts about each other from various dossiers by various resident agents? Similar family problems, similar health problems… Waverly's upbringing would not let him refer to abstinence and alcoholism in words other than these discreet euphemisms.

Vinogradov has seemed a little more direct in Waverly's experience, or at least, according to the reports of his agent embedded in Vinogradov's circle. (An archive clerk and cameraman, a source of infinitely interesting things regarding Vinogradov and his spry puppy whom he has deigned to share with Waverly, Illya Kuryakin.) Of course, it is possible that some corrections need to be made to their estimations (just like to article 47, page 95, thank you, Turkey), but Waverly is moderately confident that he knows Kuryakin's measure now, and the depth of his ambition and commitment as honed by Vinogradov, even if some of the conversations they have tapped into might have been staged. Some might have been, but there is nuance to be analyzed in the way Kuryakin used to treat Teller, and the way he treats her now that she has been promoted; in the way he interacts with Solo in official briefings where Waverly is free to watch him, in the course of missions when external surveillance tracks them and reports back on them, following their own protocol, and during downtime when they carefully stage the level of appropriate camaraderie that should go on record (and yet let a dangerous mix of envy, tension, affection and resentment bleed through). Waverly is moderately confident, and that is enough to push forward with aplomb. He does not understand why Vinogradov has been so obstinate in the past five months, unwilling to cede ground (just like India, striking out article 51, veto accepted).

But things are moving forward, slowly but surely, and the matter of time is the last thing left between them and the lunch break. The Matter of Time. Vinogradov taps the microphone, and Waverly is sure that a forty-minute speech is about to pour out of that mouth; he sees Robertson, who has recently replaced Sanders as the CIA representative, collect himself; he wonders which of the arguments he will have to use and how many aces his sleeves will be forced to part with; he wonders if he really has managed to keep all talk down and whether nothing has been leaked of the fact that the laboratory has been prepared and the team has been assembled, or Solo has ratted them out even though Waverly is the one holding his leash now… He wonders, half of his brain going through all the options, and so the other half only belatedly realizes that Vinogradov has articulated the assent of the six organizations he is acting on behalf of today. And in uplifting flowery language, too. His black eyes are full to the brim with dancing devils, and Waverly has the uncomfortable feeling that he has been hoodwinked even as he secures the approval of the program and breaks the meeting for lunch.

He telephones Oslo straight away, and they initiate the preparations for the optimistically pre-planned, pre-scheduled mission even as Waverly navigates pleasant conversation with his own MI5 successor over beef casserole and caramel custard. Thanks to the admirable prudence of Waverly's plan, and the sheer audacity of the lies Teller lays on thick for her former colleagues to get them to relocate before revealing the immediate nature of the operation – and the non-negotiable nature of the radio silence which is going to prevent Solo and Kuryakin from contacting anyone outside of UNCLE – everything is ready for launch by the time all signatures are present on the final document the following morning.

They are all waiting for him to call so that they can turn the tumblers on the machine, and yet Waverly stares at the telephone, wickedly uncooperative and gleaming with all its slick black plastic surfaces, and thinks what he might have missed. Of course, it seems terribly, terribly straightforward – the need to race ahead, to be ahead, to upstage one another, only comparable to the need to secure and control the terrain and to lay down the rules of the game. They all have so much in common even if they all represent different countries with different interests… Or represented, Waverly smirks, firmly holding the cool plastic machine between his hands. The smooth polished surface of his desk reflects his face back at him, at once fiendishly vulpine (like Teller's), smugly mobile (like Solo's) and still a little boyish (like Kuryakin's). Of course the Soviets wanted to play one of the decisive roles in the time experiment. Them digging in their heels over the participation of their agent, and dragging out the matter of who it was going to be, and trying to influence who was going to take part – all those gray hairs they have given Sanders, no wonder he had a stroke, the old sod… The Americans vs the Soviets, business as usual. Leverage, it is all about leverage… But it is good that it is all decided now. 

He picks up the phone and waits for the click of connection, ordering to start the mission _he_ has selected and planned, with the agents _he_ has selected and planned. The seeds _he_ had planted have sprouted in Vinogradov's and Robertson's offices, and he is going to see results when Solo and Kuryakin are sent to the future. 

Results that are going to be entirely his.

***

 

**II**

Time feels slick and unctuous, rippling around them and sloshing like swamp sludge.

Illya is comfortable in the knowledge that he looks like more brawn than brain to some, or that he seems too volatile and vulnerable for his own good. All that may even be true; he defers to others for judgement. That is what curators are for. What matters is that he is smart enough, stable enough, and resilient enough for the given circumstances. He performs adequately. More than adequately.

He can certainly keep it together better than Solo, who spills his urges and his discontent all over the place. All those years in the military, in the criminal world, and in intelligence – and yet the Cowboy is more useful as an asset to another country than his own, the way he unwittingly telegraphs his intentions and drops pieces of information when he fancies himself playing his own game against Sanders, the CIA, Gaby – anyone. Idiot. A tedious idiot.

It will be so inconvenient if he ends up dead this time.

Illya sighs and pushes through with familiar technique, as if swimming through time despite the resistance, the phantom drowning sensation long gone. He catches sight of Solo, jaw clenched tight and panic rising in his eyes, an echo of the time in Rudi Teller's chair, and resolutely reaches out to push him through, gasping, sometime in 1974. 

Solo shakes himself and straightens, a sickly flush quickly replacing the unnatural pallor, and gives Illya a queer sideways glance before walking away.

Maybe not entirely an idiot. It is going to be awfully inconvenient for Solo to develop extra astuteness now. Illya mentally curses the beneficial air of the future.

The mission is entirely reconnaissance, and Illya resolves to play his part as ordered. He lets Solo be the leading partner as per Teller's instructions, and he is confident in that he hides his boredom behind gruffness better than Solo hides his suspicion behind nonchalance. 

But truthfully, 1974 is quite boring. Illya liked 1969 more, and perhaps 1973. 

Actually changing the fluid future, and not merely observing it.

Illya mentally composes a draft of his report, the one he is going to have to submit when they return ten years into the past. Not that Teller has given them a sample form yet, but Illya has already seen it, studied it – two weeks ago, when he went into 1965, and talked to himself from 1965, and saw his own UNCLE forms from 1965. Only a year, and he has grown so proficient in filling out these monstrosities! Illya is quite proud of himself… of himself from 1965, the one he is never going to become now, anymore, but does it really matter?

It doesn't, Illya thinks firmly, even as 1974 stretches and wobbles slightly around the flaws in their reconnaissance plan and Solo's pig-headedness, and Illya is almost glad for the bullet graze in his arm because it stirs a dark mix of guilt and worry within Solo that is only good for him, the wretched scoundrel. Illya seethes quietly, thinking that this is just like that time in Istanbul in the beginning – just like that time in Buenos Aires in 1969, with the Illya from 1969 and his Solo, the one that is probably never going to happen now. Illya seethes and lets Solo orchestrate their extraction, finally collected and resolute, as he should have been from the beginning. (Illya almost misses the times when Sanders haunted Solo; the Cowboy used to be more alert with that old vampire around. He suspects Solo might miss him too, even though it is not entirely impossible that Sanders' stroke was the consequence of something Solo did to him.) Illya seethes, and Solo watches his wound, healing uncommonly fast the way wounds do when you are displaced.

It is possible that Solo does not entirely buy Illya's faked surprise at the state of his injury.

They plunge into the thick of it, warm and vaguely disgusting as always, and Illya breathes through the effort, waiting to come back onto the other side of 1964, where Waverly waits for them, confident in the scientific breakthrough and the triumph of his pioneering mission.

1964, where Oleg Anatolyevich is waiting, just like he always is, reliable like a stone wall. No matter how many advanced courses for the Ministry of Interior they put him through, diplomacy has never been Illya's profile, but it really doesn't take a genius to put two and two together: of course, UNCLE's operations are all very good and their time travel is going to be very useful… but the country has its own interests.

And while the wheels of diplomacy have been slowly turning, the train of Soviet science has rushed at full speed, with its very own time travel machine fully operational months before Waverly was able to initiate the first turn of his tumbler. 

And it has been Illya, of course, who has repeatedly provided Oleg Anatolyevich with substantial, tangible, timeless results.


End file.
